Friday’s jaw-dropping “Kenney Pennies” announcement may have included a few feeble temporary measures to slow surging COVID-19 infection rates and ease the strain on the fraying health care system, but it took less than 24 hours for word to leak the Alberta government has created special exemptions for rodeos. So
Continue readingTag: Jason Kenney
Accidental Deliberations: Saturday Evening Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Doug Cuthand highlights how we can’t afford to let our guard down against the dangers of COVID-19, while Allysha Howse notes that a full-on lockdown may be approaching if Ontario (and other provinces) can’t change course in a hurry. The Leader-Post and Star
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The UCP says they aren’t, but here’s why vaccine passports are coming to Alberta
Vaccine passports are coming to Alberta. Not just yet, but they’ll be along soon enough. Alberta Premier Jason Kenney (Photo: Alberta Newsroom/Flickr). Not because they make sense. Opposition Leader Rachel Notley laid out that case pretty clearly yesterday: during a pandemic like the fourth wave of COVID-19 now battering our
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Ne media welcome: Jason Kenney reappears, virtually, answering curated questions via Facebook Live
Having been spotted out for shawarma in Calgary Tuesday night, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney cautiously emerged back into the artificial light of political life yesterday. Rather than making an actual public appearance and risking having to answer rude questions by the province’s media, uncharacteristically uncooperative after Mr. Kenney’s two-week vacation
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Missing premier reported sighted in Calgary – if it’s really Jason Kenney, he’s got some ’splainin’ to do!
After managing to stay completely off the radar for a two-week vacation that stretched to at least 23 days, there was a credible sounding Jason Kenney sighting in Calgary last night. If the man spotted at a southeast Calgary shawarma restaurant while a dark SUV full of bodyguards idled nearby
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The silence of Premier Jason Kenney, out of sight since Aug. 9, keeps Alberta’s rumour mill churning
Now and again, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un or some other foreign dictator disappears for a spell and international media spins up a whirlwind of wild speculation. Academic experts think the leader’s dead, or maybe just in “a vegetative state.” Experts theorize he’s hiding out from a coup attempt, or
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Tzvi Joffre reports on the C.1.2 COVID variant which is confirming that the threat posed by the coronavirus continues to change and spread. And Emily Willingham comments on the importance of masks in schools to protect schools and individual health alike. – David
Continue readingAlberta Politics: In Alberta this week, COVID’s surging and there’s no sign of the premier – but, fear not, we have a chief firearms officer!
Alberta’s premier hasn’t been seen in public since Aug. 9. But he’s just on holiday, Jason Kenney’s spokesperson says. “He is of course still able to fully communicate with his Cabinet and senior officials as required,” Jerrica Goodwin said in a statement yesterday that, seemingly, was intended to reassure us
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Alberta premier unseen since Aug. 9 as COVID counts rise; Opposition assails inaction and media starts to grumble
With COVID-19 case counts in Alberta marching higher by the day, now closing in on 8,000 active cases, the chorus of grumbles about the what’s become of Premier Jason Kenney is increasing in volume. Mr. Kenney was last seen on Aug. 9 at a press conference called to announce expansion
Continue readingAlberta Politics: That Delta variant COVID-19 scenario that Jason Kenney just didn’t see happening? As summer ends, it’s happening
Delta variant or no variant, Alberta would be pulling the plug on almost all COVID-19 restrictions on July 1, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney confirmed on June 18. “On July the first, on Canada Day, Alberta’s public health measures will be lifted and our lives will get back to normal,” he
Continue readingAlberta Politics: NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, target Jason Kenney on his own turf
The Alberta portion of NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh’s election campaign got off to an upbeat start in Edmonton yesterday with an enthusiastic outdoor crowd of supporters, a substantive policy announcement, and some fair shots at Alberta Premier Jason Kenney. Mr. Singh’s visit to the Edmonton-Griesbach Riding indicates party strategists have
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Doug Cuthand calls out the Kenney and Moe governments for prematurely and irresponsibly declaring victory over COVID rather than paying any attention to how they’ve put their citizens at risk. And Nesrine Malik highlights how decades of anti-government rhetoric have laid the
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Promise provincial cops won’t cost more than Mounties will be hard to keep – so what’s Jason Kenney really up to?
On Friday, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney promised that Alberta municipalities policed by the Mounties won’t have to pay any more for a provincial force than they do now. “We’re going to guarantee them that this model would not cost them one cent more,” the premier told a news conference on
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Federal Health Minister Patty Hajdu waves a red flag in front of her irascible Alberta counterpart, Tyler Shandro
Obviously, federal Health Minister Patty Hajdu didn’t expect to get a serious answer from Tyler Shandro, her Alberta counterpart, when she wrote the irascible minister to warn him the Kenney Government’s “unnecessary and risky gamble” to drop COVID-19 testing, contact tracing and mandatory isolation will put children at risk. In
Continue readingAlberta Politics: If the Alberta Party wants to get to the end of the rainbow, Brian Jean is probably not the man to take it there
Can it really be true Brian Jean, who once thought he had a pretty good chance of occupying the Alberta premier’s office as leader of the Wildrose Party, is quietly negotiating to lead the Alberta Party? With John F. Kennedy’s caveat that where there’s smoke, there’s usually a smoke-making machine,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Emily Anthes highlights what the people paying attention to COVID-19 (and particularly the Delta variant) have learned about the risks of transmission in schools – including the need for ongoing mitigation measures to avoid outbreaks. Simon Rella et al. study the spread
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Lauren Pelley examines the impact of the Delta variant in Canada. And Marieke Walsh notes that we’re facing an increasingly tight time frame to ramp up COVID-19 vaccinations to avoid it resulting in a fourth wave, while reports on U.S. research showing
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Welcome home, blogger! Don’t worry about closed Alberta hospital beds – we have pepper spray and pickup trucks
SIDNEY, B.C. Welcome home, blogger! Alberta Premier Jason Kenney trying to prove that he’s a real manly Alberta man too (Photo: Twitter/Jason Kenney). Having spent a few days dealing with family business in British Columbia, the first reminder of what passes for reality back home as I await my delayed
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Graham Thomson writes about Jason Kenney’s choice to base his governing strategy on COVID denialism. William Hanage expresses his disappointment at Boris Johnson’s continually woeful pandemic response – though it’s hard to see why anybody should have expected anything different. And Ed Yong
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Sarah Rieger reports on the experts pointing out that Jason Kenney (among other right-wing demagogues) is wrong in bleating incessantly that the pandemic is over. And Yasmine Ghania reports that many Saskatchewan residents are far more responsible than their government (or the
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